


the hardest part of ending

by beastofthesky



Series: picking up the pieces [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Choose Your Own Adventure, Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Reconciliation, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11116899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofthesky/pseuds/beastofthesky
Summary: .....is starting again.Two grown-up adult men help each other out, sort of, and then talk about how they should probably talk about things. Probably.// This is an choose-your-own-adventure style fanfiction hosted on an external site – link + info in the body of the fic.





	the hardest part of ending

**This fic is hosted offsite because of its format –[please click here to access it!](http://www.philome.la/glassedplanets/the-hardest-part-of-ending)**

 

 

Because this fic is an interactive “game” built in Twine, I unfortunately couldn’t host it directly on AO3. Instead, it’s being hosted on philome.la, a dedicated Twine game hosting service, so that’s where the link above leads. It should work on mobile, though it might not look as intended. As of right now, I've got no clue what I could do to fix that.

You can also download this game as an .html file [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/mm0g4ql94zn8ccd/the_hardest_part_of_ending.html?dl=0) if you’d like to access this offline; it should open in your default browser. If this download (or the philome.la hosting) doesn’t work, please let me know so that I can try to fix it!

As this is choose-your-own-adventure style, there are a number of choices you’ll be able to make. However, there are no bad endings or bad routes, so proceed without fear! You can “play” this as many times as you’d like. All tags and content warnings apply to the work as a whole.

 

//

**Overall word count:** 25,141 words

**Word count per route:** ~7k words

**Content warnings:**

\- canon-typical violence – non-graphic descriptions of injuries, fighting, etc.

\- body horror – discussion of Reaper’s abilities and how they have affected / are affecting his body, though it’s not graphic or gory

\- mental health issues – anxiety, depression, guilt, disordered eating and sleeping

\- discussions of death (Jack’s, in the general hypothetical, and Gabriel’s)

 

//

Thank you so much to everyone who cheered me on and helped me look over this – I appreciate it _so_ so much. Big thanks to Sundry, Kasumi, and Mac @ the R76 discord for helping me out with the Chinese, Malay, and Romanian headlines!

I’ve never, ever written anything like this, so I would very much appreciate feedback as to the format, especially where accessibility is concerned! This was mostly a For Funsies project where I could mess around with Twine and interactive fiction, so I would love to hear how this type of thing worked for You, A Fanfiction Reader.

I’m thinking about publishing one or two “routes” as additional chapters here on AO3 for easier reading, so if that’s something people are interested in, I’ll probably do that. Also, if there are any glitches or if you have any trouble accessing or launching this, please let me know so I can fix that.

This ended up leaning pretty heavily into one of my headcanons, so if you’re interested in my ~~crack theory which is TOTALLY confirmed now with Destiny 2 on Battlene~~ t reasoning behind Jack’s big news, [here’s a huge tl;dr post](https://basiacat.tumblr.com/post/153874984659/basiacat-basiacat-smoke-monster-reaper-is) about it, and [a related tl;dr timeline](https://basiacat.tumblr.com/post/156451342754/basiacat-basiacat-basiacat-smoke-monster). [This post](https://prettyarbitrary.tumblr.com/post/151027984415/monstergabe-ok-but-im-so-not-here-for-the) is also one of my favorite headcanons about pre-Fall Overwatch, and it was definitely big inspo for this fic. And while I’m dumping links: [playlist](https://basiacat.tumblr.com/post/157303382769/a-fanmix-for-stubborn-people-listen-here-art), [opening quote](http://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-the-hellmouth), [closing quote](http://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/xlviii-aiat-aiat-aiat-aiat-aiat#books-of-sorrow).

Title is from Linkin Park’s [Waiting for the End](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qF_qbaWt3Q). The series title is also from the same song, and the other two works in this series, radiance and requiem, also share a name with songs off the same album as Waiting for the End. Go hard or go home. I guess it’s a fitting ode to our fave edgelord, or something. (That’s a lie. I just love Linkin Park. :/ )

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The Hardest Part of Ending](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15823638) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods), [Arioch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arioch/pseuds/Arioch)




End file.
